In a display test for the display devices including command interface, such as liquid crystal display device for mobile phone, a plurality of signal source devices for use in testing are needed for the reason of different command systems depending on users or for other reasons. In addition, a plurality of control programs for testing device must be prepared for the reason of different testing patterns to be displayed depending on users or for other reasons.
As shown in FIG. 10, a conventional liquid crystal display device 70 has a display panel 71 and includes a source driver 72 and a gate driver 73 both for driving the display panel 71. Further, the source driver 72 is integrally provided with a data control section 77 and a RAM 74, which constitutes a driver output section. Note that, the data control section 77 may be separated from the source driver 72.
Further, in the liquid crystal display device 70, a nonvolatile memory 75 such as EEPROM stores a setting value for driving the display panel 71 and others. The data control section 77 reads data in the nonvolatile memory 75 into the RAM 74 to use them.
In the liquid crystal display device 70, during a display test, the data control section 77 is connected to a signal source device 80 via an input signal terminal 76. Meanwhile, in the signal source device 80, a test sequence and testing patterns which are suitable for the liquid crystal display device 70, which is a testing target, are stored beforehand in a storage device 82. In the display test, a control microcomputer 81 reads out the test sequence and the testing patterns from the storage device 82 to generate a display signal and supplies the display signal to the data control section 77 in the liquid crystal display device 70 via the input signal terminal 76. With this arrangement, the source driver 72 and the gate driver 73 are driven in accordance with the test sequence under instructions from the signal source device 80, and the testing pattern is displayed on the display panel 71. Note that, in the display test, the liquid crystal display device 70 is supplied a drive-use electric power from a power source 83 of the signal source device 80.
Note that, as prior art documents related to the present invention, there are the following patent documents 1 and 2.
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 230313/1997 (Tokukaihei 9-230313; published on Sep. 5, 1997)
[Patent Document 2]
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 341748/1993 (Tokukaihei 5-341748; published on Dec. 24, 1993)
However, in the conventional structure, since the test sequence and the testing patterns were stored in the storage device 82 of the signal source device 80, the tasks of preparing the test sequence and the testing patterns both of which are suitable for each model of the liquid crystal display device 70 and storing them in the storage device 82 was required for each model of the liquid crystal display device 70. Moreover, the signal source device 80 had an intricate circuitry.
Therefore, a display test for a liquid crystal display device with a large number of models, such as mobile phone, required cumbersome and extensive works of preparing a great number of complex data of the test sequence and the testing pattern and storing them in a great number of signal source devices.